Launceston

Monday, March 09, 2015
Cradle Mountain, Tasmania, Australia
Sadly we had to leave Cradle mountain today. The sun was shining again and the weather was starting to warm up. I think the cool weather we had yesterday was the perfect hiking weather though as we were sweating enough then without the sun.
We drove through the changing landscape again today which varied from pasture land dotted with dairy cows and then alternating rainforest and pine and eucalyptus plantations .
We headed to the coast and stopped briefly at Wynyard which was rather a sleepy little town with a rather nice golf course and a yacht club but not much else. The beach was wide and quite rocky but the water was very calm.

After Wynyard we passed through Burnie and the ferry port of Devonport and then drove through the countryside again, stopping at a little, but very popular, cafe for lunch.

We arrived at Launceston this afternoon and the weather has turned very warm. I am back in shorts and t-shirts again and the people here are wearing even less.
Not having any internet last night we didn't know of anywhere in particular to stay so we just followed the GPS to a row of mediocre motels near the heart of town. They all looked fairly similar so, since we only have one night here we just picked one and checked in.

The main attraction here is Cataract gorge which is right at the edge of the city . We went there as soon as we had settled in the motel and proceeded to take the chairlift across the park. The park is beautiful and has a large open swimming pool which has free entry as well as many hiking tracks that vary in length. We did a bit of walking around the trails and climbed up the various lookouts, as well as walked over the swing bridge that spans the gorge.
We finished with a hot chocolate at the cafe overlooking the gardens there which had several Peacocks roaming around.

We just went out for dinner to Hungry Jacks and they had free wifi there so I was able to publish my bogs. I still have some photos to put with this one so hopefully we will be able to access the wifi at Coles bay.

Launceston is extremely hilly. The streets are so steep that it reminds me of San Francisco. The motel is on the side of a hill and it is rather difficult getting into the car park.
There are a lot of heritage style houses, although some of them are 'renovators delights', they are very pretty and a lot of houses here have great views of the neighbouring mountains.
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